New Ford Puma is What Car? Car of the Year – gongs too for BMW, Audi, Skoda and more

The new Ford Puma SUV is the What Car? Car of the Year, with manufactures winning multiple awards including BMW, Audi, Skoda and more.

Older readers may not yet have got used to the idea that a Ford Puma is a small SUV, and not a sporty coupe, but they might as well as the Puma SUV is here to stay. And it’s making its mark.

Not only is the Puma getting almost universal praise for its combination of abilities at sensible money, it’s now been crowned Car of the Year by What Car?.

The Puma was up against the Audi Q2 and Skoda Kamiq for the Small SUV of the Year and the Skoda Scala, Tesla Model 3 and Range Rover Evoque for the overall Car of the Year gong, but it saw off all competition.

The judging panel declared the Puma fun to drive and cleverly packaged, as well as very well priced, and delivering properly impressive real world economy. None of which is going to do sales of the Puma any harm at all.

The top gong may have gone to Ford for the Puma, but BMW did well with awards for the Best Executive Car and Best Plug-in (3 Series) and Best Luxury Car (5 Series), Skoda got Best Family Car (Scala) and Best Estate (Superb) and Audi got Best Luxury SUV (Q7) and Best Coupe (TT).

New awards for this year – Small Electric Car, Large Electric Car and Coupe SUV – went to the Renault Zoe, Tesla Model 3 and Range Rover Velar respectively, and the Reader Award went to the new Land Rover Defender.